


Shhh, It's a Military Secret

by SianShanya



Series: Moonlight Serenade 'Verse [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: A Gratuitous Number of OCs, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Humor, M/M, Peggy Carter is better than you, Some Primo Nazi-Fighting, The Captain America Radio Show, World War II, multiple POVs, the Howling Commandos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-31 20:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12140484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SianShanya/pseuds/SianShanya
Summary: There's a war on, you know





	1. OPERATION TRISKELION

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, hello, and welcome to the WWII Howling Commando fic that no one asked for and yet I wrote anyway. Focusing on the Howlies, Peggy, and Colonel Phillips. I really just wanted to write historical fiction for the MCU okay.

The first thing to clear up here, see, is that this story isn’t about Captain America. It’s not about Agent Carter, Colonel Phillips, Sergeant Barnes, or any of them, really. 

It’s about all of them, the team itself and all the support behind it. The radio shows and the comic books and every single movie, from the 1986 spectacle starring Chuck Norris to the 2010 Indie flick that vexed Fox News for months, even after Captain Rogers woke up, they all get that wrong. They focus on explosions, or the whirlwind romance between Rogers and Carter, or maybe even the thing that may or may not have existed between the good Captain and his best friend, but they all miss the foundation of what the Howling Commandoes really were.

So, in keeping with that, then, this story doesn’t begin with a shield, or at Azzano, or even with a science experiment in Brooklyn. 

It starts in 1940, with an agent named Margaret Carter in Bavaria. 

**

November 2, 1940

“Might as well hand the ‘ole bloody country over, sending a green girl in like that. What are the old boys thinking?” Agent Jasper Hornwood said to his partner, before flashing a loaded look at the small woman sitting across the truck bed from him. “Meaning no offense, Maggie-my-dear.” Margaret, who preferred to go by Peggy or, ideally, Agent Carter, slapped a sweet smile on her face.

“None taken, Agent Hornwood. Training is no substitute for proper field experience, I’m quite aware. If only the house were staffed by men.” Peggy injected just enough simper into her words that Hornwood narrowed his eyes, unsure whether he was being mocked. Eventually, he decided not, and finished his briefing without further aspersions cast. Once he finished lecturing about the importance of blending in, from her accent to the way Germans signaled the number three, he handed her a transponder, already tuned to the correct radio frequency. She tucked it into her thigh holster, up against the smooth metal of her Walther, and patted at her hair, checking her makeup in a hand mirror and pulling Eva Seidel, young Bavarian maid, over herself like a jacket. 

“How is it, then?” she asked Hornwood in perfect German, as the truck rattled to a halt. He gave her a lengthy once-over, tugged at her brown coat to straighten the hem, and said,

“You’ll do, I expect. Remember, no contact until you’ve got the package and are ready for extraction. It’s too risky.” Peggy didn’t roll her eyes, though she wanted to. Honestly, it wasn’t as if wearing lipstick sapped one’s brains. Instead, she gave both men a smile and a ‘sir-yes-sir’, and hopped out of the truck to make the trek up Castle Kaufmann’s impressive driveway.

Getting into the manse wasn’t difficult. She spun a quick story to the cook about the snow and difficulty traveling across country, and prepared herself to defend her cover. Her papers were the highest quality forgeries the SOE could get hold of, but the Nazis were notoriously suspicious. Eva Seidel existed, too, down to her party family in Passau and excellent Hitler Youth record, everything in Peggy’s resumé was accurate, except that Eva’s family was in the business of passing information to the SOE and hiding Jewish refugees in their cellar. Peggy needn’t have worried, though. The cook, a large woman with wispy blonde hair, was not at all suspicious of her cover, just spent a few minutes lecturing Peggy about timeliness, before handing her a silver polishing rag and setting her to work. 

Exhausting work it was, too. Castle Kaufmann had a never-ending list of chores for only four maids, but the upside of that was that Peggy had a far more accurate layout of the manse and grounds within two days than the SOE had managed to cobble together in the six months since they’d learned of Erskine’s presence here. Two days was long enough to catalogue every member of the household, too, as it was staffed by as few people as humanly possible in the interest of preserving secrecy. There were four maids, two cooks, a couple of SS guards for Erskine, the scientist himself, and Herr Schmidt.

Schmidt was sternly handsome, built more like a soldier than the scientist the SSR had pegged him as, and possessed of classical European bearing that put Peggy in mind of her older male relatives, the ones who waxed eloquent about the virtues of empire and bemoaned popular revolution as a fad. His jodhpurs and shiny black boots only completed the picture. Luckily, that bearing extended to the domestic staff, and so long as his sheets got turned down and his supper delivered on time, he didn’t notice Peggy. 

The other lucky break in Peggy’s operation was that, in the absence of lab techs, Dr. Erskine often needed the least busy maid down in his lab to assist in his experiments. Peggy immediately made it her business to be the least busy maid, and so gathered intelligence as to the progress of the weapon Erskine was being forced to engineer. Her luck, though, ran out rather quickly after that. 

The SOE hadn’t had the foggiest as to what that weapon was, only that Erskine was the premier bioengineer in Germany. A few instances of fetching this or that vial for the man settled that particular gap in intelligence. It was like something out of the pulp sci-fi novels Peggy loved so, a serum to enhance a person’s cells in the interest of creating a super-soldier. A ‘superior man’ in the very literal sense of the word, which explained Herr Schmidt’s interest in Erskine’s work. And, the real snag, it was very near to being complete. 

Or rather, Erskine thought it was; Peggy herself was having a hard time believing the pale blue stuff in the test tubes would do anything more than make a man ill. Science fiction, in her experience, was just that, fiction.

All the same, Dr. Erskine had played nearly every card in his hand for more time, leaving this rather disappointing mission in Peggy Carter’s hands. 

The most effective way to pull off the extraction was simply to contact Erskine directly. He’d smuggled a telegram to the SOE requesting this extraction, after all; it wasn’t as though he’d refuse to come with her. Unfortunately, contacting him directly was expressly against her directives, as his labs and rooms were all bugged to hell and back. And if Peggy did anything, anything at all, to compromise the success of this mission, she’d been told multiple times, she’d be back in the SOE’s typing pool faster than one could say ‘Keep calm and carry on.’ 

And if Peggy was going to be an agent, she was going to be a goddamn _agent_ , not a glorified secretary, so the circuitous route it would be. 

She said nothing to Erskine, avoided Schmidt as much as possible, and batted her eyelashes at the SS guards over the next two days. She employed every speck of her not-inconsiderable charm, bringing an extra biscuit for each of them with tea, and volunteering to bring them supper that night. Cook tipped her a wink at the request and said, “Best of luck to you, Eva. You pull down one of those young men, you’ll be set up for life” Peggy smiled, the same sweet thing she’d flashed at Hornwood a week ago, and scooped up the tray so as not to shudder at that thought.

The boys very much appreciated Eva’s kindness and sweet smiles, and it only took two days of charm for them to start winking and shuffling their feet at her. By Wednesday afternoon, she had a date with Hans, the older of the two, set for the next day. A brush of the right lipstick would have him on the floor in minutes, and his partner Werner was barely nineteen, horribly inexperienced. Certainly not a match for Peggy’s training. A quick scurry down the kitchen’s service tunnel and a scramble across the hundred yards from the root cellar to the tree line, and Bob’s your uncle, Agent Carter’s first mission a resounding success. She could almost smell the male frustration. 

This operation was going spectacularly well, if she did say so herself. 

So, of course, it went just as wrong the next afternoon, scarcely hours before its end. The only warning she got was Schmidt, stalking past the open guest room where she was fluffing pillows. “At long last,” he muttered, a wolfish smile twisting his face as he went. 

Oh, dear Lord, the labs. He was heading for the labs. Peggy watched her airtight plan go bang out the window. 

“Shit,” she hissed between her teeth. It was now or never, the mission was bloody pointless if Schmidt got a look at Erskine’s completed formula, useless though it certainly was. She raked her curled hair back out of her face, and marched downstairs, hoping against hope that the anonymity of domestic workers would protect her. 

It was amazing what a person wouldn’t notice, if it was wearing an apron and carrying a feather duster. No one paid her any mind as she half-walked, half-ran along the richly decorated stone hallways on the ground floor, and she reached the lab not a minute behind Schmidt. She’d be in time, the mission wasn’t blown just yet.

Unfortunately, it seemed Schmidt cared about as much about lab safety as Peggy did about the opinions of her Great-Aunt Alice. She skidded into the lab just in time to see him snatch a syringe out of Erskine’s hand, ignoring the older man’s shout, and she very nearly had her gun out before he jabbed the thing into his arm and pressed the plunger. 

Nothing happened, and Peggy sighed in relief. As she’d thought, Erskine’s work was a fantasy. 

Just as that thought finished crossing her mind, Schmidt’s face began twitching horribly, and then he was screaming, convulsing as though he were possessed. A moment later, his knees gave out and he dropped to the ground, syringe shattering against stone flags. Peggy took advantage of the distraction to finish drawing her gun and shoot both Hans and his partner. There was neither the time nor the inclination for mercy, not today.

“Right then doctor,” she said in English as they fell. “now or never, as they say.” Erskine didn’t look particularly surprised. 

“My sentiments exactly, fraulein.” He said in the same language. He grabbed a sheaf of paper off the desk and ground the syringe into powder under his shoe as he turned for the door. On the floor, Schmidt was clawing at his face and _keening_ , a horrid, animal sound, and dear God, what the hell was happening to his-

Erskine grabbed her arm.

“Agent!” he snapped, and Peggy shook herself, dragging her eyes away from the floor. “What is our exit strategy?” 

“Fo-follow me.” She said, and took off running. She headed not for the kitchen tunnel, but for the conservatory, because Amelia and Elsa had already been through and cleaned it today, and it opened onto the back lawn. She took them down a few extra hallways, the ones that would be empty this time of day, and small mercies, they didn’t run into anyone between the lab and the lawn. Of course, it was bloody freezing out, November in the mountains, and neither of them were dressed for the outdoors. 

Her undercover recon had revealed a fully-stocked hunting cabin a few kilometers into the woods though, for the use of visitors. It wouldn’t be a comfortable walk, but there would be furs and food at the end of it, as well as the relative safety to call her extraction unit. 

“Please tell me that’s the only copy of your work.” She said, pointing at Erskine’s bag. He nodded. 

“It is the only one that is complete enough to do the Nazis any good. Aside from some early theorems in from my home in Ausberg, all that exists are these notes and the one sample I made, which I’m afraid is rather incomplete still.” Catching her hopeful look, he shook his head. “Assuming Schmidt survives, it will make him stronger, that is the effect I am sure of. The others, less so. I did warn him, but-“ he sighed. “he is obsessed.” 

“Damn.” Peggy growled. “A minute earlier-” She wasn’t at all sure how her handlers would take this. On the one hand, she had Erskine and his work, but on the other, the serum, which certainly had some effect, was in Schmidt's possession. Not to mention, the weapon the SOE had been so desperate to acquire read more like a pulp novel than the credible weapon schematic they'd wanted.

Not to mention, there was no proof that it worked, and only Peggy’s word it was anything more than colored water.

She nervously placed the call to Hornwood and the others. She wasn’t expected to report on her mission until debrief, thank God, so the boys all went very quiet the moment she stepped out of the trees with Dr. Erskine at her side, and stayed that way all the way across the Channel. They’d all expected her to fail, come crawling home with her tail between her legs, all silly dreams of action and combat behind her. 

Problem was, Peggy’s ambitions weren’t girlish; she’d not wanted to fight until little more than a year ago, crouched in a London Tube station and swearing to herself she’d find a way not to be so afraid ever again. Hadn’t wanted to be a field agent at all, not until the Army officers had come to Mum’s door to hand her a folded flag and rip the world out from under her feet. 

As it turned out, the higher ups took her report with stares.

“A super-soldier serum.” Said Chief Nelson dubiously, glancing between Peggy’s written report and her face. She straightened her shoulders, chin held high, and nodded.

“Yes, sir. As I wrote in my report, neither Dr. Erskine nor myself are able to say for sure that the serum worked, but it did have an obvious effect on Schmidt.” Nelson flipped her folder shut, looking pained.

“Miss Carter, are you entirely conscious of the threat facing this country?” Peggy’s heart sank. She hadn’t really expected anyone to cheer her for coming back from Bavaria with an eccentric scientist and a truly unbelievable story, but that didn’t mean she wanted to hear the implication that she didn’t understand the severity of her situation. She drew herself up even further, bracing for her inevitable dismissal.

“Yes, sir, I am.” Nelson folded his hands atop her report.

“Then I simply do not see how I can, in good conscience, allow you to continue to work with the SOE in your current capacity. Your reassignment paperwork will be filed by morning, Miss Carter.” He turned his attention to Dr. Erskine, leaving Peggy to keep a stiff upper lip. “As for you, ah-Doctor, the Straegic Scientific Reserve has volunteered to take custody of your case. You’d be granted American citizenship in exchange for working with their scientists. I suggest you take their offer, as you will not receive one such from His Majesty’s government.” Peggy very nearly felt bad for the poor man. The SSR, as its acronym went, was the Americans’ ‘deep science’ division, ostensibly engaged in thwarting Hitler’s endeavors into the occult. It was a bloody waste of resources, a repository for military embarrassments and Hollywood scientists like Howard Stark.

Dr. Erskine crossed his arms and gave Chief Nelson a blandly innocent look across his desk. “I would, of course, rather my work be in the hands of the Allies. I would be happy to take the Strategic Scientific Reserve’s offer. If I might make a suggestion as to Agent Carter, here, though?” Peggy started, and Nelson blinked in surprise.

“Agent-Carter?” 

“Yes,” said Erskine, leaning in conspiratorially, “I understand her performance has been a bit of an embarrassment to your agency, especially considering her-ah-progressive status. If you would consider assigning her to the SSR with me, it would take her out of the country. Let her be America’s problem, as it were. After all, they have not even entered the conflict; she cannot hurt the war effort from there.” Peggy bristled, opened her mouth to tell Erskine exactly what she thought of that, and the consequences be damned, but it was too late. Nelson was nodding, tapping at his chin in thought.

“Less of a gaffe for the SOE, gets her out of the way without the embarrassment of firing her.” He mused, flashing Peggy a horrid, paternal smile. “I rather like your thinking, Doctor, assuming the SSR agrees.” He picked up the telephone right then and there, such a relief was the good doctor’s suggestion. Peggy’s knuckles were aching with the effort of staying still, of not slamming her fist into the desk, or one of their bloody faces. 

Nearly an hour of increasingly irritated negotiation later, Peggy was named the SOE’s new American Liaison, at Dr. Erskine’s complete disposal. Peggy wondered whether anyone could see the steam surely pouring out her ears. Once Erskine left his office, Nelson narrowed his eyes across the desk at her.

“I hope you realize the gravity of what’s happened here today, Miss Carter.” He said loftily. “Were it not for your benefactor, your career as an agent would be over this very moment. I suggest you keep that in mind while on your new assignment.” Peggy blinked in surprise, having not thought of it that way. Although, she supposed, it wasn’t quite wrong. Before Erskine’s intervention, she’d been headed back to the typing pool. Now, though she’d been assigned to the laughingstock of the intelligence world, she was still an agent. It was a second chance, if perhaps the most infuriating second chance possible. 

She and Erskine flew to New York a week later. Nearly the full trip across the Atlantic, Peggy couldn’t stop straightening and re-straightening the brass pins at her lapels. She’d come unbearably close to losing them, only still had them because of Erskine’s intervention. She’d made a rookie mistake in Bavaria, been too cautious and inflexible, and nearly lost her career, the only thing she had that was her, the Peggy Carter she wanted to be. Though utterly obnoxious, Hornwood hadn’t really been wrong in calling her a ‘green girl.’ 

She would fix that, dammit. 

The world, she knew, would never see her as anything more than a woman, but for herself, for her own peace, she’d be an asset, not a liability. Whatever she had to do, she’d find a way to help the war effort through this assignment with the SSR. She, after all, had seen with her own eyes what the brass hadn’t been willing to believe, coming from her. That Erskine’s serum worked, that the Nazis were actually onto something with their science fiction obsession. 

The war was about to get more interesting, and Peggy was determined to keep up.

**

MISSION REPORT: NOVEMBER 29, 1940

Colonel Chester Phillips had missed Thanksgiving. 

Millie wasn’t happy about it, per say, but she understood. It was hard to argue, of course, with the fact that this was Chester’s last chance to make a difference in this war.

Not that the U.S. of A. was officially in the war. They weren’t, though in Chester’s opinion, it was only a matter of time. You didn’t get to call yourself a major world power and stay out of major world conflicts at the same time, after all. It might be a few months, but there’d be American troops on the ground in Europe at some point. 

Hell, Chester himself would likely be one of them, since his current assignment with the SSR dealt exclusively with Hitler and his pet scientists’ dreams of occult power. 

To say Chester’d been underwhelmed at the assignment to run the Strategic Scientific Reserve when Marshall’s secretary had informed him would be perhaps the understatement of the century. Underwhelmed, yes, but not necessarily surprised. See, it all went back to fucking July, the lead up to the Selective Service Act’s passage and the fallout from the fall of Paris. And, devastating career effects aside, Chester stood by what he’d said, 100%. America was sitting with its thumbs up its ass about the Nazis, and if it didn’t get its act together, soon, they’d all be learning German in primary school in five years. 

This war wasn’t like the last one. Chester had fought in the Great War, the war between empires. This-wasn’t that. This was a fight against rampant fascism, a fight for the very existence of liberty, and Chester thought the US ought to be at the fucking forefront, not dragging its feet and sitting on its hands. Unfortunately for his career trajectory, he’d said that to the wrong damn person, and said career had taken a wild left turn into some hack author’s best idea of a spy agency. 

Chester was a soldier, not a spy, and not a scientist. And yet, he’d been tasked with ‘running’ the SSR; some horrible fusion of the three. Recruiting Stark took care of the science bit, at least. Though just a kid, Howard had ideas in spades, weapons and defense programs and the lot, so much so that Chester occasionally felt bad about pinching him off the Manhattan Project, where he’d likely actually do some good. Partnering with the Brits took care of the spy bit, too, leaving Chester to focus on the Strategic aspect of the SSR, namely, how the fuck he was supposed to fight a shadow war with Johann Schmidt over religious artifacts in Northern Europe with no goddamn funding. 

A shadow war over religious artifacts. Jesus, what had Chester’s life come to? 

Hitler was digging around North Africa for the remnants of early Christianity, trying to prove to his followers that they really were the superior man, but Schmidt, Schmidt was trawling through Northern Europe instead, leaving Chester to wonder whether he or whichever US Senator had coughed up the startup money for the SSR was crazier. 

These were the thoughts that chased each other around Chester’s head as he pulled up to Stark’s private airfield to meet the Brits’ idea of a liaison, some young girl who’d half-blown the only field op she’d ever been assigned. If Chester’d been wondering whether the Brits were taking this more seriously than Congress, he wouldn’t be anymore. 

The girl in SOE pins was tiny and doe-eyed, perfectly pinned hair and lipstick Millie’d be proud of. She looked a good deal more like Chester’s secretary, Lorraine, than she did an agent. But she marched right up to him like nobody’s business, and stuck out her hand.

“Colonel Phillips, yes?” she said, her accent cracking over the syllables. Before he could nod, she was talking again. “I’m Agent Peggy Carter, I’ve been assigned to the SSR as your liaison with the SOE.”

“So I heard.” Growled Chester. That conversation with Senator Whatsit hadn’t been fun, to say the least. “I also heard something about a scientist.” She nodded, crisp.

“Indeed. This will be Dr. Erskine debarking now, fresh from Germany. He’s quite eager to provide whatever help he may to the Allied intelligence networks.” As she spoke, she jerked her chin at the private jet behind her, where a smallish, bearded gentleman was indeed climbing down from the door. “I believe the report from his extraction was sent ahead?” Chester nodded. 

“Something about a potential bio-weapon, right?” Carter raised one perfect brow.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing potential about it, Colonel. The Doctor and I both witnessed his formula’s effect on Johann Schmidt, and our sources have since confirmed that the man is still alive and pursuing his interests in Scandinavia.” Chester’s jaw dropped. 

“You mean-this Super-soldier thing-“

“-Is quite real, and unfortunately the only one in existence is a German.” She interrupted smoothly, and Chester found himself reevaluating her. She looked like a recruitment pinup, but he was no longer quite sure she had much in common with Lorraine. 

That suspicion soon became a certainty. Peggy Carter was, in a word, terrifying. Less than a week after arriving stateside, she’d familiarized herself with every Senator and piece of brass who dealt even peripherally with the SSR, as well as every active operation in the books. Since most of these were small surveillance and reconnaissance missions in the frozen wilds of Scandinavia, that was no small thing.

In addition, she’d wrangled a lab and a set of techs out of Stark, who, upon coming out of his first meeting with her, had looked not unlike he’d been hit in the head with a brick. 

“That-“ he’d said, swaying a bit, “is without a doubt the most incredible woman on the face of this Earth.” Chester, who was not of that opinion himself, snorted. 

“Planning another conquest, Stark?” The young man’s eyes went wide. 

“Are you kidding? You’d practically have to be superhuman to keep up with her!” 

Chester had rolled his eyes at the kid’s puppy-eyes, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. Carter was a believer, pure and simple. Whatever she’d seen on that half-blown op in Bavaria had her totally convinced they were on the losing side of a very deadly arms race, and her determination to catch up was infectious, much to Chester’s irritation. HQ staff jumped at the click of her 

For Christ’s sake, there was no evidence at all, beyond a couple of shell-shocked civvies, that Johann Schmidt was anything more than a Nazi, ‘deep-science’ division or no. That, plus the circumstances that had landed both Carter and Chester himself in the SSR, was a sums problem that equaled not much in the way of noble patriotic glory, if you asked him.

Or, at least, that’s what he’d thought before two of the best agents in Chester’s ragtag little division made it back from a job in Roskilde, the last of a squad of five operatives in Denmark.

“Hand-to-God, Colonel,” said Donowicz. “The Nazi fucker put his fist clear through Piersen’s chest, I saw it with my own two eyes.” He shuddered. “Ain’t likely to stop seein’ it anytime soon, neither.” Chester pinched the bridge of his nose.

“And it was Schmidt who did this?” Feldt nodded. 

“Yessir, stake my life on it.” He winced, pulling away from the medic cleaning out the nasty gash in his arm. “Fuck, Doc, give a guy a break, will you?” 

“They were all callin’ him ‘Herr Schmidt’ and bowin’ to him like he was some kinda royalty,” offered Donowicz, taking pity on his partner. “Hydra’s gone off the goddamn rails, Sir. The only guys we managed to catch in the last few months went and offed themselves instead of talkin’ to us.” 

Feldt nodded emphatically. Behind Chester, Peggy Carter crossed her arms, radiating smugness.

“Well done on getting out alive, gents.” She said. Thankfully, she was nothing if not professional, and she waited until Chester marched back to his office, shut the door, and poured himself a scotch before she sniffed.

“I expect you’ll be believing Dr. Erskine and myself now?” Chester looked at his scotch, looked at Carter, and tossed the liquor back. 

“Guess I owe you an apology, Carter.” He growled. “Drink?” She smiled.

“I’m not one to refuse a good scotch, Colonel. And as to the apology, don’t trouble yourself. I know it’s rather difficult to believe.” She took the proffered glass, and took a few polite sips before continuing. “If you’re quite on board, though, the Doctor has been tinkering with his formula, and he’s confident he can perfect it.”

“And that means super-soldiers on our side, right?” Carter nodded.

“I was rather forcibly demoted into the SSR, Colonel, as were you. I understand your misgivings, but I do believe that, quite to the opposite of the intended result, we are to be the tipping point of the war.” She frowned. “Assuming you can convince your government to fund the Doctor’s project, that is.”

Science fiction and magic aside, Peggy Carter was indisputably the best agent in Chester’s arsenal, and though she was truly infuriating, he was kind of looking forward to inflicting her on whatever unfortunate Army grunts he could weasel out of Basic.


	2. OPERATION DOG-SPOT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabe Jones joins the Army. It does not go as planned.

North Carolina, 1943.

 

There was something comforting about the routines at an Army camp. 

No matter where you stood on base, you could always hear rhythm, whether the tortured, sarcastic singing of a company on its fourth mile of run, or even just the shifting of cloth as men marched, ate, and saluted. 

Gabe’s hometown had been like that, in its own little way. Made from music, always some melody or rhythm to hear. It was nice to know that even in a place like this, you could find a song.

Now, that was about the only thing comforting about being the sole black man in a US Army camp who wasn’t wearing an apron over his uniform jacket. 

The Colonel in Georgia had looked at him like he was a goddamn unicorn, eyes flickering between Gabe’s file and his face. It was the first time anyone over the rank of Sergeant had deigned to speak to Gabe since he’d arrived with the 1st. It was also the first time any white man had said anything to him that wasn’t about mess times or his ability to sling Army slop.

“A college man, you say?” the Colonel had said, still looking at Gabe like he might decide to up and fly away any second now. “And you enlisted?”

“Yessir,” Gabe said, “Howard said they’d hold my place if I joined up, and I figured I had a duty, Sir.” And there was Ma and the medicines, and forty dollars a month, but duty sounded a hell of a lot better, in terms of brass-pleasing. 

“Well,” mused the Colonel, talking more to his desk than Gabe, “No one can say you’re not distinguished. Between your education and your dedication to your country, you might even make a good addition to the regiment.” And before Gabe’s brain even caught up enough to speak, he’d been dismissed. Hadn’t had a damn clue what was happening until Lieutenant Beauchamp stopped him outside the Colonel’s office.

“Hope you’re ready for the real Army, boy,” he growled, “You probably thought spooning chow was rough, but we take it easy here, knowin’ your people’s limits and all.”

Gabe had looked Beauchamp dead in the eyes and said, high on the realization that he’d been reassigned,

“I think I can handle it, Sir.” 

The high lasted through that comment, all the way through packing, and a few minutes down the road to-well, somewhere else. Not Georgia, anyway. Then, it occurred to him what was actually happening, and his heart and stomach had gone plunging through his innards.

See, you can have an all-black regiment (and Gabe had all-out _prayed_ to be assigned to one) or you can have black men in a white regiment cooking and cleaning. Either one is all fine and dandy, and everyone’s happy. Well, everyone apart from the kind of radical white people Gabe’d attended talks with back in D.C. before all this, anyway. And sometimes, not often, see, but sometimes, those white folks have enough money and enough voice to make somebody up on the Hill throw up their hands and say “Fine, fine, if we put a Negro in an infantry division with white soldiers, will you shut up already?” 

Gabe, as it turned out, was that Negro. And as a college man, Gabe Jones was all for it, for desegregation and the end of backwards-thinking old Jim Crow. But as That Negro, the one currently having the stuffing taken out of him at every conceivable opportunity, he was, kind of shamefacedly, wishing those leftie white folks had kept their mouths shut and let him keep scooping hash. The worst he’d gotten back with the 1st was a little mean-spirited ribbing. After all, when you thought a man was already in his place, there wasn’t a whole lotta point to knocking him further down. 

Now, though, now, you had the third option, the one that made nobody happy, most especially not Gabe. And hell, yeah, he liked the idea of actually getting to fight, kill some Nazis and take back France and Italy. There was the statement he was making too, for all the guys back home, and he liked that alright, too, that Abe might get to see his service picture and know his big brother was out there really making a difference for him. 

Was it too much to ask for that he might make a difference with the 371st, though? Get to fight alongside men who actually wanted him around them? Gabe had no illusions about how this was about to go, thanks-so-much. For the love of Jesus, the brass was so committed to pleasing the lefties, they’d gone and bunked him _with_ the white soldiers. 

But, as his Mama used to say, when she could get out whole sentences between coughing fits, anyway, ‘Ain’t no sense in wishin’, you got what you got.’ And what Gabe had just now was a 107th Infantry patch on his upper arm. Could be worse, he supposed. The 107th was at least Northern, from New York. That didn’t probably mean a whole lot, but at least they weren’t from Mississippi, that was all Gabe had to say on that. 

He winced, hauling his pack higher on his shoulder as the jeep that’d dropped him off trundled away. 

“So,” came a voice to his direct right, “You’re Jones.” Gabe jumped, spun around in the dirt, saw a pair of stripes, and snapped his hand up into a salute.

“Yes, Corporal!” The Corporal, a tall, dark-haired guy, cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Easy there, Private. I ain’t exactly General Devers, you don’t haveta snap to at me. James B. Barnes, you’ll be in 1st Platoon with me.” Jeez, the guy sounded like every New Yawker on the radio programs, it was unreal.

“Yes, Sir.” Managed Gabe, suddenly very appreciative of that fact that he didn’t blush easy. 

“The Colonel’s expecting you upstairs,” continued Barnes, like Gabe wasn’t reeling off balance at this whole situation. “Once he lets you off the hook, I’ll show you ‘round, where you’ll be sleeping and all.” Gabe manfully refrained from shuddering, but the Corporal must have seen something in his face (‘You best learn to control that mug of yours, Gabriel Jones, ‘fore you get into trouble’ said Ma in his head), because he grinned, crooked but not nasty or anything. “Captain Manelli bunked you mostly with city guys.” He shrugged. “Can’t promise you won’t get shit, but the idiots from Upstate’ve mostly never seen a Negro before, and Cap figured you could do without the starin’.” Gabe’s fist tightened on his ruck strap.

“I don’t need special treatment, Sir.” He mumbled. Barnes snorted.

“Well, naw, but you got it from the brass already, dontcha?” Gabe sighed.

“I suppose I do, Sir. I’d like not to give the others more of a reason to hate me than they already have, though.” At that, Barnes laughed out loud. 

“I got a friend you oughta meet sometime, kid. I imagine you could teach him a thing or two regarding common fuckin’ sense. Now get goin’, I ain’t getting bawled out ‘cause you were late for your assignment, Private Jones.” 

As he trudged up the steps to the big house serving as battalion command, Gabe wondered exactly what the hell he'd gotten into. Thus far, Yankee soldiers were a different animal altogether than their good ol’ boy counterparts. 

Colonels, on the other hand, were kind of the same all over. This one, whose name was Strachan, had been addressing his desk for a couple of paragraphs now, ostensibly welcoming Gabe to the 107th, and informing him, just in case he wasn’t aware, just how lucky he was to be here today. 

It was familiar, really. Colonel Roberts back in Georgia had said much the same when Gabe left. Not a fun spiel to listen to, but Strachan wound up pretty quick, and let Gabe snap a salute and escape without much of a fuss. The Corporal was, as promised, waiting for him. 

“I can find my own way, if you need to be somewhere, Sir.” Barnes laughed again.

“Please, kid, you’re getting me outta PT right this very second. And quit it with the ‘sir’ shit, huh? I’m not an officer.” Gabe resettled his pack on his shoulders, uncomfortable. He’d picked up early on in his Army career that attention wasn’t likely to lead to much good. “The guys mostly just call me Barnes, anyhow.” Gabe had to laugh at that.

“Too many Jameses?” Barnes sighed theatrically, dropping his shoulders halfway to the ground. 

“Got four of ‘em in 2nd platoon _alone_ , Jones. You ever seen pigeons when somebody starts waving a hunk of bread around? That’s what it looks like whenever anybody says James around here.” Gabe grinned, despite himself. 

“Don’t they all have nicknames?” Gabe’s known a lot of men with James as their Christian names, and not more than three of them had actually gone by it. 

“Aw, yeah, but we’ve only been together a coupla weeks, and the officers haven’t exactly made friends with every private in Fox just yet.”

“We’re Fox Company, then?” 

“Yeah, that’s us. Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 107th Infantry.” He yanked open the door to one of the wooden barracks buildings. “This is our stop. You’re taking Private Marks’ place.” Gabe’s eyebrows shot up, and Barnes shook his head. “He isn’t dead or anything, don’t worry. Prick’s dad greased some palms and got him transferred outta infantry’s all.”

Barnes gestured to a neatly made bunk with an empty footlocker at its end. Gabe dropped his bag on the Army wool. “Lotta rich kids in this unit?” he asked, curious. Back home, everyone thought of New York as being a pretty swell place, full of shiny buildings and fashionable people. And Barnes sounded like the radio programs, but that didn’t make him a swell, necessarily.

Barnes shrugged. “Not so much anymore. Most of ‘em have gone the way of Marks by now.” Catching Gabe’s glance, he added, “ _I’m_ from the Brooklyn waterfront, kid. Wouldn’t know what to do with money if I had it.” 

Gabe had to laugh at that, too. 

**

So Gabe joined a white regiment. 

The letter to Abe just said 'transferred to a new camp', and little things about life and North Carolina itself. Abe was fifteen, and there wasn’t much Gabe could protect him from anymore, but he didn’t want his kid brother up all night worrying, neither. Lilah, though, was a different animal, twenty-four and married. And she’d kill him if she found out he’d kept something like this from her, so he didn’t even bother. She’d worry, yeah, but with her husband shipping out for the Pacific in August, she wouldn’t let it get to her and ruin their last few weeks together. Lilah was practical like that. 

There wasn’t much for her to really worry about, anyway.

There were mutters and looks the first couple of nights, but on the third morning, O’Malley-well-liked, ginger, from Manhattan-marched right up at mess and slammed his tray down across from Gabe. 

“Where you from, Jones?” he asked, glaring around at anyone who happened to be looking. After Gabe answered, Privates Oscar Alonso and Izzy Cohen settled in on either side of him and started asking about Staunton, what Virginia was like and all. The three of them were city kids born and raised. Most of 1st Platoon was, actually. It never got old, either, the way they looked at him when he described Shenandoah for them, like Gabe’s cousins on Christmas morning. 

Between those guys and the NCOs, who were determined not to make a fuss over Gabe in any way, life settled down pretty quick with the white boys. The direct talk died down within a week, even Ricketts’ moaning and groaning about the bunk situation. ‘Course, direct talk wasn’t everything. Like always, there were things Gabe heard that made his blood boil and his fists clench. Sometimes, the man talking would flash him a guilty glance afterward, and on one occasion, Ralston actually came up and apologized, said he’d never realized ‘til right then, thinking how Gabe must feel about his joke, that it wasn’t on the level. Gabe’d nodded, and shaken his hand, which seemed to make him feel better. 

The only real problem came when somebody read Gabe’s file and found out about the engineering degree he was halfway through. That fact wasn’t the problem, though. The problem was that Captain Manelli decided that half a degree made Gabe the most qualified enlisted guy in the Company to be a radio man. And being the sort of upstanding guy he was, Manelli then shoved him into radio training. 

And some of the guys had things to say about that. 

That week, Gabe got good at staring at the ground. He knew better than to glare, to let himself be provoked into a fight, and Alonso, Izzy, and Barnes came up with excuses to be with him just about everywhere, lest some idiot get it into his head to beat the shit out of the Negro behind the showers or something.

Every time someone made a comment in his hearing, which was usually in PT, Gabe just pushed harder, ran faster, or jumped higher, and his PT scores soared. Sergeant Matthews didn’t do much to stop the ribbing, but he didn’t participate, either, which Gabe was grateful for. Following a few glares from Barnes and one punch from Cohen, the worst of it died down in a couple of weeks, but Gabe caught dark looks and the occasional derisive snort throughout Basic. 

Viola, sweet thing that she was, wrote Gabe twice a week like clockwork, had done since he’d shipped to Georgia. Every time he saw her signature, signed 'with love', it made the day a good bit better, no matter how bad it'd been. 

To her, and only to her, did he talk about his comrades, good and bad. He’d told her about Lieutenant Beauchamp, with his down-the-nose gaze, about his friends in Georgia, even about the Colonel’s little speech. And now he told her, feeling kind of like a naturalist observing a new species, about the 107th. 

They were a cast of characters, that was sure.

“Jesus Christ, O’Malley, I can’t believe you’re gonna let that stand!” O’Malley snorted, eyes still watering from the ‘sauce’ Private Ralston had borrowed from Alonso and added liberally to his Army slop.

“Who says I am, huh?” he asked hoarsely, crossing his arms. “You better sleep with one eye open, Ralston.” Alaric Ralston laughed.

“I’m shaking in my boots, mickie.” Gabe smiled, and checked another word off his ‘words I’d only heard on radio programs until joining this crazy outfit’ list. 

“Fuck you laughing at, Jones?” growled Izzy from across the mess table. Gabe blinked, trying to look like the soul of innocence. 

“Nothing, Iz. I don’t think O’Malley’s face just now was the highlight of my week so far, no sir, I don’t.” 

“Well, that ain’t saying too much, it’s been a shit week.” That was Barnes, shouldering in between Gabe and Alonso with his own tray. Gabe tilted his head in agreement. Their Sergeant had been arrested two nights previous, for a truly spectacular DUI charge.

“Hey, settle a bet here, willya, Barnes?” piped up Bramson. “You was there when the MPs hauled Sergeant Matthews off, weren’t you?” 

“Yeah.” Barnes raised an eyebrow. “Whatcha need to know about it?” Bramson leaned in.

“Was it a jeep, or a motorbike, huh?” Barnes shook his head.

“I swear to God, if the pack of you spent half as much time on the range as you do gossiping like my aunts, this Company’d have the highest marksmanship scores in the fuckin’ Army.” Bramson only leaned in closer, still expectant. Barnes left him on the hook for a second, and then grinned.

“Neither. Lucky for the poor bastard’s brains, it was an armored car, one of those half-track ones.” There were chuckles at that, and more at Bramson, who’d put money on the Jeep theory. O’Malley slapped the unfortunate man on the back, and asked,

“Any word on who’s replacing Matthews?” The question went to the general rumor mill, which was in full swing across the battalion, just now. It wasn’t every day a Sergeant got hauled off for crashing an Army vehicle into the county courthouse, after all. 

“It’s gotta be internal, right?” said Alonso. “One of the Corporals.” 

“You never know.” Said Barnes. “Lieutenant Pierce’s getting all kinds of shit for this, he might want a fresh set of eyes.” 

“Well, if I was betting, I’d bet on you, Barnes.” Said Alonso. “For an Irish kid, you’re all right.” O'Malley aimed a smack at Alonso's head, but Barnes laughed.

“High praise, kid.” 

Gabe shook his head, dropping his gaze to his tray. New Yorkers were an odd bunch. You didn’t find Lieutenant Beauchamp’s kind of racism with them, but they placed a lot of importance on which country your parents came from, and whether or not you were a Protestant, as opposed to a Catholic or a Jew. 

Being half Italian actually made Barnes something like mixed-race, by the New York City Standard. 

It was ridiculous. Gabe’d seen what it was to be mixed, and it didn’t make any kind of difference what part of Europe your parents were from. 

It was one thing, and a terrible thing, to be sure, to get roughed up because your Mama spoke Italian and your Pa with an Irish lilt, but it was nothing, nothing at all, compared to Gabe’s little cousin, whose biological father had called her mother a ‘negress whore’ in public when he’d found out about her birth, and wouldn’t even look at her in town. Aunt Loretta was married now, to a good man who loved her and Tabby with everything he had, but Gabe knew she was one of the lucky ones. Lucky it hadn’t been worse on her even than that. Every black ear in the South heard the stories. 

He told Vi about that, too, marveling at the idea, not quite able to decide if it meant New York was maybe a little more progressive than back home, or if it was actually worse, to try and compare the situations when the reality of being mixed-race was so ugly. 

Course, that didn’t say anything bad about Barnes himself. Alonso was right about that part, he was a good guy. Gabe had his doubts as to the first bit, though. After all, if there was one guy who was angling for the vacated Sergeant position, it was Tim Dugan. 

Tim was a big guy, originally from somewhere in Ohio, and loud enough to be heard from across camp, usually. He was 1st platoon’s other Corporal, and he’d been a circus strongman before the war. 

He wasn’t a bad sort, really. He just often forgot to let his brain catch up to what was coming out of his mouth, and as such had said some things he probably regretted.

Barnes hated him.

Or, well, hate was maybe the wrong word. It was probably more like grumpy, but sincere, dislike. And Dugan wasn’t lining up for Barnes’ autograph, either. They worked together alright when they needed to, but any words exchanged between the two Corporals outside of training were generally terse and, where possible, limited to ‘pass the salt,’ or ‘’scuse me.’ 

Most importantly, Dugan actively wanted to be a Sergeant, where Gabe was pretty sure Barnes didn’t care one way or the other, so long as the men were alright. After all, Barnes didn’t want to be in North Carolina at all, let alone any kind of merit promotion.

Not many of the men knew that, that Barnes was a draftee. It wasn’t something you talked about, unless you were a real conscientious objector or something. Barnes was not, just a guy who didn’t want to go over to Europe or the Pacific and get shot for a country he barely belonged to. Gabe only knew because Barnes had told him, in one of those rare moments it was just the pair of them sitting around barracks. Gabe’d been commenting on how he sometimes (or all the time) felt like he couldn’t say the sort of things on his mind, because nobody’d understand the place they came from. 

He’d had a lot of practice, at school in DC, with hearing things that made him want to haul off and hit someone, or even just make a real dark joke, and biting his tongue. Didn’t make it any easier, here. 

Barnes had huffed a bitter laugh, and said,

“Tell me about it. I don’t have much to contribute, when everybody starts talking about how fired up they are to kill some Germans.” He’d winced, like he hadn’t meant to say that much, but at Gabe’s raised eyebrow, had elaborated. “Well, I don’t really want to go kill Germans. I, uh, I’m here ‘cause my number came up.” 

Tim Dugan had enlisted, and he was proud as all hell of it. 

“I tell you guys, when we get to fighting, you’re gonna hope the guy next to you’s really there for you. And you just can’t be sure about that, with a draftee.” He gestured at Gabe. “Hell, even Jones volunteered.” 

“And what the fuck’s that supposed to mean, Dugan?” asked Barnes, loudly. Tim looked over at the other Corporal, who was still leaning back against his bunk, the picture of lazy nonchalance. That was, if you couldn’t see his fist, clenched under one leg, knuckles white and veins standing out. 

Dugan shrugged, and said breezily, “Nothing, just that I’d rather have Jonesy in my foxhole than some draftee who’s liable to get me killed out there.” Barnes’ blue eyes went steely, a look that was becoming pretty familiar to Gabe. He sighed, knowing exactly what was coming next, and yet unable to look away.

“Well, if we’re ever in the same foxhole, I’ll do my best not to let my incompetent draftee ass get you killed. No promises if we’re in a ditch, though.” 

Dugan spluttered, eyes wide. Barnes wasn’t done yet, though.

“And where do you come off all high and mighty anyway? I’ve never said anything about your desirability as foxhole company, and the whole fuckin’ unit oughta call you ‘Dum Dum,’  
with how you go on saying every goddamn thing that comes into your thick skull.” 

Gabe was a little in awe of Barnes, right then. Not the kind of awe that made Gabe want to imitate him, but awe all the same. 

Things chilled between Barnes and Dugan, after that. It only got worse when it was Barnes, and not Tim, that became squad, and then Platoon, Sergeant in Matthews’ place. 

After that, Gabe was a little worried for 1st platoon. His bond with his squadmates thickened, by way of nervously watching Barnes and Dugan work together and waiting for the inevitable fistfight. 

But it never came. 

Barnes, who had almost overnight become ‘Sarge,’ and Tim seemed to be committed to professionalism, though Gabe was fairly certain it was to spite each other. Neither of them was going to be the asshole that caused problems for the platoon, and so they were perfectly civil to each other in training, and other than that, completely ignored each other. Dugan stayed angry that a draftee had been promoted over him, and Sarge was still simmering mad that Dugan thought that. 

It didn’t help that some of the men had taken to calling Dugan ‘Dum Dum’ behind his back. 

**

They were shipping out any day now, and rumors flew left, right, and sideways as to which theater they’d be headed for. O’Malley’d heard from some guy in Easy company that they were bound for the Pacific, and Ralston swore on his ma’s grave he’d heard Europe. Still more guys thought North Africa, and the company’s intel officer kept his mouth infuriatingly shut on the whole thing. 

Barnes, though, seemed largely unconcerned. 

“Europe, Africa, what the hell difference does it make?” he asked as they headed for the mess tent. “Anywhere we go’s gonna be enemy soldiers and dirt in places you’d rather not have dirt.” 

“Aw, Sarge, you worried you might run out of pomade?” Gabe shot back, grinning. Barnes aimed a smack at his head, but he spun away. 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? My hair ain’t fixed and some French dame might just notice you.” 

“Uh-huh,” said Gabe laughing. “and of the two of us, who’s ever convinced a girl to hang around longer’n two weeks, huh?” 

“Oh, fuck you, Jones.” 

Gabe cackled the rest of the way to Mess. 

They left North Carolina that afternoon. They were going north, but it took Izzy plastering his nose to the train window before Gabe realized they’d, for most of the guys, gone home. 

New York City was, as it turned out, pretty shiny, at least from afar. The guys pointed out their boroughs to Gabe as they approached, and when they arrived in the train station, they got the best news of the week.

“A free evening, can you believe?” said O’Malley, for the third time. Gabe shrugged.

“’S’alright for you guys, you got families to visit with.” He said. O’Malley threw an arm around Gabe’s shoulders.

“Naw, kid, you just stick with me, and I’ll show you family!” 

And that was how Gabe met the O’Malleys, who were really nice people, if a little confused as to where in the Army their son had met and had occasion to befriend a black man. For a Yankee, Mrs. O’Malley was a fair cook, too. 

It wasn’t til the next morning, when they were trooping onto their troop ship, which was bound for England, that Gabe thought to wonder where Sarge had been. Nowhere too fun, it seemed. He flashed a grin and made a dirty joke, but his closed-off eyes and the tense set to his jaw told a different story. Not even the sight of his mother and sisters in the hat-waving crowd smoothed the worried lines off his face. 

“Who were you hoping would be there to see you off?” asked Gabe later, once New York was long gone. “Your Pa?” Sarge snorted.

“Nah, Da died last year.” He sighed. “I was looking for Steve, my friend who could learn a thing or two from you.” From what Barnes said about the guy, they were real close, like brothers, but Gabe couldn’t imagine how letting Sarge ship out for war without saying goodbye was too brotherly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is shamelessly influenced by Band of Brothers. Please don't hesitate to let me know your thoughts! This is not in any way historically accurate, but I did try to stick with the prevailing attitudes of the time.


	3. OPERATION SLAPSTICK

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A horror story

James Montgomery Falsworth decided to be an officer in 1922. He was 8 years old and his father had just returned from Ireland, defeated. 

That fact, thought the young heir to Preswich Hall, made this all rather mature. After all, if a boy could look at his father in the wake of a horrid military defeat, one which had resulted in the breakup of Ireland, even, and still want to be just like him, then he’d always want it. Nothing, in the young James’ mind, could tear him from his dream.

Officering was in his blood, simple as that. He’d go to school, get a proper education-because it wouldn’t do to upset Mum-and then he’d join the army. Royal Fusiliers, like his father. He’d lead men into battle, for God and country, and he’d be a great bloody hero. He might lose a battle here or there, but he’d be proud as a peacock nonetheless. Like Dad. Always, like Dad.

It went alright, at first. Monty left home for the first time at 13, when he was enrolled in Winchester College. 

Mum was always on about school, how a good education was the ‘foundation of a proper gentleman, Monty, love, so do your best.’ Monty always listened, because he was a good lad, and good lads listened to their Mums, but he never really loved school like she wanted. 

It was a lark, sure. He liked the sports, cricket in the yard and rowing along the rivers, but classrooms were dry as dust. Monty got average marks all through, solidly in the middle of the pack, but that wasn’t a problem, he had good breeding. At Mum’s insistence and Dad’s encouragement, Monty started at Cambridge the fall after graduating from Winchester. He read for a military history degree, and finally, he understood what Mum’d been on about all those years. He loved the coursework, could talk about Napoleon and Hannibal for hours. He soaked up the tactics, both ancient and modern, like a sponge.

Every time he read, talked about the strategy, the battles, it reinforced what he’d known when he was 8.

Monty was going to be a soldier, like his father. 

Colonel Falsworth had fought in the Great War as a Lieutenant, earned pips like bloody skittles, and climbed out of the trenches a Major. From there, he fought around the world, from Ireland to Kuwait and finally bloody Palestine, where a shrapnel blast took his life in 1936. Monty was home from Cambridge on summer hols when the Army came to the door. 

Mum sat him down a few days after the funeral and begged him to be an accountant.

“Please, darling,” she’d said, tears gathering in her eyes. “You’d make good money, your marks are good enough-“ Monty’d hugged her, hard, and let her soak the front of his shirt. He didn’t answer her plea, only said 

“I love you, Mum.” She’d known, even before starting the conversation, what he’d say.

Monty was going to be an officer, like his father. Not even his mother’s tears could change that.

He graduated from Sandhurst on the 4th of June, 1938. His mum smiled through tears, and Poppy burnished his pips til they shone fit to blind a man. Ned’s sole comment was,

“Can I hold your gun, Monty?”

He was stationed just outside London. The duty was frightfully dull, actually; a lot of marching ‘round the grounds and saluting at the right people. But he was a soldier, a leader of men, and every time he caught a look at himself in the mirror, in uniform, he was reminded of the Colonel. Somewhere, he thought, his father was proud. 

What he hadn’t expected was that the mid and upper level brass in London were a soft-headed bunch. Weak-chinned, elitist, old-money, arseholes, and Monty did say so himself.

To be fair, remarked a fellow Lef’ty whenever he set about complaining, Monty was also an old-money, elitist arsehole. Monty, at least, was capable of treating other people like people, even when they hadn’t gone to Eton.

And, he discovered rather quickly, he was incapable of standing back and letting elitist, old-money arseholes mess about with his men and their lives. By summer of ’39, he’d been demoted back to second Lieutenant once, and his file had more flags in than Windsor Castle. ‘Insubordinate and Disrespectful,’ he was. 

The past year hadn’t quite measured up to Monty’s lofty aspirations, to say the absolute least. Not that Monty’s ever admit it, outside his own head. Mum, teacher after teacher, that one prig at Sandhurst, they’d all said he couldn’t do this, said this wasn’t for him, begged him to do anything else. Monty was not giving any one of them the satisfaction of watching him quit. 

James Montgomery Falsworth was a God-damned officer in the Royal Fusiliers, and he’d drop out over his own dead body, and not before. 

Monty was halfway through his press-ups when he heard that he was at war. It was the first of September, and German soldiers had crossed the border into Poland the night before. Monty looked at the Lieutenant who’d brought the news, and grinned.

This was it. His ticket out of London, away from the bloody Elites. His ticket to the heart of soldiering: War. Monty could hardly wait.

His excitement lasted exactly two weeks, because that was when Colonel Ransome hauled Monty into his office for a ‘chat.’

“So.” started the Colonel, eyes going between Monty’s face and his beige personnel-folder. “We need to talk about this, James.” Monty said nothing. After a tortured moment, Ransome sighed, and nudged a sheaf of paper across the desk. “These are your reassignment forms. I want you on your way by 0900 tomorrow.” Monty blinked. His hands came out from behind his back, without his conscious approval.

“I-You’re reassigning me?”

“This can’t be a surprise, Falsworth. For Christ’s sake, man, you’ve got fifteen write-ups for disrespect alone, there’s not a superior officer in this regiment you haven’t embarrassed at one point or another.” He fixed Monty with a searching gaze. “I know you’ve got the potential to be a fantastic combat leader, your marks at Sandhurst show that.” 

“Sir, all due respect, if you think I’d be a good combat leader, then assign me a platoon and put me on a boat.” Ransome sighed again.

“Unfortunately, Falsworth, that’s not how this works. I simply cannot, in good conscience, allow you to represent the King if we can’t come to some sort of understanding. Frankly, my dear boy, the only reason you haven’t been discharged is your family name.” Monty drew himself up yet higher, lead settling in his stomach. Opening his mouth, he sealed his own fate.

“I won’t beg, Sir. Every last one of those notes are in my file because I stood up for myself and my men. While some of my expressions were ill-considered, I cannot truthfully say that I regret the spirit of the disrespect itself.” Ransome nodded.

“Then you’ll report to the First Airborne tomorrow evening.” Monty nodded tightly.

“Yessir.” 

“Dismissed.” As Monty turned to leave, Ransome tossed out, “You’re not a bad leader, Falsworth. Do watch your mouth up north, hm?”

**

September, 1943

“I’d kill a man for dry socks, I bloody would.” 

“Fine, Pink, so long as he’s not me.” Pinky cackled around his cigarette, and Monty dropped his head back against the tree behind him. The 3rd been in Italy near a week now, and it was hotter than the Devil’s own arsehole, autumn be damned. “How are your men doing?” Pinky, whose God-given name was Alphonse, poor love, shrugged. 

“No-one’s swooned yet, so not terribly, on the whole. First platoon’s foxholes and covers are nearly finished.”

“Lovely. I’m afraid it’ll be snowing before we get trenched in as well as the Colonel wants.”

“Does it snow here?” asked Pink. “Hard to imagine, in this weather.” Monty laughed.

“Actually, I don’t think it does, here. Southern Italy’s quite the holiday destination, when it’s not crawling with fascists.” Pinky rolled his eyes. 

“Falsworth, not again. ‘Southern Italy on holiday,’ honestly.” He chuckled. “It was a good bloody summer if Mum got us out to Brighton for a weekend.” 

Monty winced. Pinky, unlike most of the other officers, was from London, a bit above working class, but not aristocracy. High enough on the social ladder for a commission, but not enough to fit in with the old lads. Of course, Monty’s own family title was dusty, rural, and quite modest, but it was still a title, and it had come with a rather cushy childhood. One that only got cushier as he got to know his men and the places they’d come from. 

“Apologies, Pink, that’s another cig I owe you for being a posh wanker.” 

“You’re bloody right, it is.” Monty passed the fag over and hauled himself back to his feet, groaning at the twinges in his legs. They’d been fortifying the road into Taranto for three days now, which meant sixteen-hour days of digging trenches and hauling bits of tree into makeshift barriers, in case Jerry decided to counterattack with tanks. 

Monty’d never thought he’d miss training, running up and down the Scottish foothills every bloody day and snapping to every task Captain Atterbury could conceive in his sadistic head. But dammit, this was worse. At least Scotland in June meant pleasant climes and heather in bloom. Italy in September, however, was composed entirely of sweat and dank seawater on the wind. 

Monty was hard pressed, in the letters he’d started home to Poppy and Ned, to find positive things to say about his first campaign. Hadn’t even fired a shot yet, but war was bloody miserable all the same. 

On the 16th, Lieutenant Atterbury loomed over Monty’s foxhole as he was in the middle of wedging himself into the shadiest corner.

“Battalion says Jerry’s running about beyond the tree line. Go and take a look, will you?” Monty hopped up, happy to escape into the relative relief of not digging trenches for a few hours. The lads were even more excited to be leaving the camp and its oppressive heat. 

Trying very hard not to think about how this was his first mission in real command, Monty led his platoon into the sparse woods just north of the Allies’ camp. The trees here were scraggly and unhealthy looking, a product of the sandy soil, no doubt. Most importantly, they offered next to no cover, either for Monty’s lads or any scouting Germans about. Monty kept his eyes peeled for any odd movements among the trees’ twisted shadows. When he saw one, his rifle was up and the trigger pulled before the thought registered in his head. Instinct, all training. Monty’d grown up hunting around the manor, between that and the years of training, now it was second nature.

The first of the scouts crumpled like a puppet with cut strings, and his friends started shooting back, sending Monty’s platoon scattering, scrambling for cover. 

Monty washed up against one of the poor little trees, panting in the early autumn heat as the woods exploded around him. Someone was screaming in pain, maybe the kid he’d shot. 

“Get cover, return fire!” he shouted, though he knew it was too late. Anyone with half a brain had already done both. The firefight whipped around Monty, shots cracking the humid air, bits of tree flying madly through the air, and over it all, the screaming. 

Wilton flung himself out from behind his bit of scrub and dropped another German with a hastily aimed shot. Even as Monty opened his mouth, the lad fell, clutching at his leg, and ‘good shot, you’ came out as “Medic, we need a medic!” 

Monty dove out from behind his tree, hit the ground and crawled, fast as he could to Wilton’s side. Shots whizzed over their heads as he came to his knees next to the wounded man and fumbled for his medical kit. His hands shook around the packet of sulfa powder, but most of it ended up in the bloody mess of Wilton’s thigh. The field dressing went on next, Wilton shrieked something awful when Monty pressed it into the wound, but he didn’t thrash too badly, and he squeezed back when Monty grabbed his hand. 

“All right, lad, you’re all right.” He murmured, and continued muttering soothing nonsense as he kept pressure on the wound. Not enough blood to have hit the big artery in the leg, thank God, but bad enough for all that. “Murray, get that bugger!” he shouted at the tree to his right. He was rewarded a moment later by the sight of Murray’s rifle poking out from behind said tree and cracking, followed by a shocked cry from the direction of the Germans. 

Moments later, the forest was quiet once more, aside from Wilton’s pained gasps. The screaming had stopped at some point, Monty noted absently. 

As the platoon’s medic slid into Monty’s shoulder and took over, he realized it had been less than thirty seconds since Wilton had been shot, and scarcely a minute since his shot had started the skirmish. 

After that, there seemed scarce a day in the next month Monty’s rifle went unfired. They spent that month marching up Italy, clawing kilometer by kilometer northward.

Mercifully, the temperature dropped a bit as they headed north and inland, but it was still damp as all hell. Monty, being from Wolverhampton, was not unused to this, but he almost missed the novelty of North Africa. 

They jumped into Campobasso in early October, Monty had no idea of the precise date. His insignia sported an extra pip now, given to him by now-Captain Atterbury after the hellish to-do in Ariano Irpino. 

Pink had laughed without humor, flicked his own set of pips, and said,

“Whole bloody town blown to rubble, but hey, we’re real Lef’tenants now!” Monty shook his head and looked back at Ariano Irpino. The Lancasters were long gone now, but the ruins were still smoldering behind them.

“It’s a good thing the Germans are such fucking fascists, or I’d wonder just who the villains are, here.” He said, bitter and quiet. 

The preceding month had cost Monty two men, the company had lost 43. 43 men from his company who hadn’t lived long enough to make a combat jump, who’d trained for two bloody years and never gotten to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft, not even once. It left Monty feeling rather empty. 

Campobasso itself was lovely, provincial and ancient. If not for the mountains visible to the north, you might have thought it was an English country town. But the mountains were there, and every night they came alive, hundreds if not thousands of lights, each casting its gentle glow like stars on the velvet black of the crags. 

It was a lovely sight, if you didn’t know what they were. 

The German 10th Army was entrenched up along those mountains. The Germans had a near perfect defensive position, and the thought of dragging oneself and one’s men up the side of a mountain under tank bombardment was enough to turn Monty’s bowels to water. A few weeks before they’d jumped in to join the 8th Army, the Allies had punched through the German’s first line of fortifications, just barely north of the city. On their scouting trips, Monty could see the remnants, foxholes and blown-apart wood and dirt fortifications. And bodies. The woods were bloody full of them, stiff corpses in Nazi gray. 

“Careful, aye, Jerry’s sleepin’.” Mumbled Murray on one such sortie, stepping gingerly over a forearm, the fingers splayed out white against the loam. The men took to wearing scraps of parachute silk around their necks to pull up over noses and mouths in the woods. The makeshift scarves smelled of smoke, gunpowder, and terrified sweat, but that lot was better any day than the rot hanging in the air outside of Campobasso.

The company officers were billeted in an old hotel along the main road through the city. As far as access to hot showers and food went, this was rather a nice change of pace from the out-of-town fortifications they’d been manning all along the center of Italy. The men were happy too, able to wash and have their uniforms laundered. In many ways, Campobasso was the best posting they’d had since leaving England. 

In other ways, of course, it was the worst. They all knew it was coming, the orders to start marching north, into the foothills and the teeth of the German artillery line. Monty drilled his men every day, and he was fairly certain every one of them would happily kill him for an extra fifteen minutes of sleep. It’d be worth it though, to bring them through the campaign ahead. 

Hell found them on a cold October night. In dead dark, Monty’s company, greasepainted and silent, crept into the Italian foothills. 

They took the first few encampments by surprise, the dark their ally. The sentry at the first camp didn’t even see Monty’s knife before it slid through the meat of his throat, and the rest of the soldiers came awake to bayonets in their faces. Intelligence would be bloody giddy, with all the prisoners.

It didn’t last, though. Soon as the sun came up, the real fighting started, and less than an hour after that, the Allied advance was halted. On the far reach of the line, Monty’s platoon dug in and settled down to lick their wounds. Monty himself had taken a shrapnel fragment in the shoulder. He dropped into his foxhole with a groan. Across from him, Pink sighed in relief.

“Bloody fuck, it’s been a day, yeah?” Monty snorted.

“Pink, it’s barely noon.” The other Lieutenant raised his eyebrows.

“So it is. Happy luncheon.” Monty raised his flask in a mock salute. He went to take a swig, gasped in pain, and spilled a third of the whiskey down his jacket. Still grimacing, he thumped his head back against the foxhole’s wall. 

“Fucking shoulder.” He mumbled, as Pink cackled. 

“No, no,” gasped the Lieutenant, “really, I’m sorry to laugh, Fals, s’just-“ 

“Oh, have a laugh, you.” Said Monty. “Little enough to laugh at out here, if it’s got to be my misfortune, so-“ a horribly familiar whistle cut him off. “Incoming!” bellowed Pink, and they threw themselves flat against the ground as the first shell crashed into their defenses, spraying dirt and tree insides. Monty’s shoulder gave a nasty twinge, and he swore, breathless, into his jacket. 

The shelling went on for what seemed like hours, though in reality it was less than ten minutes. There was nothing to do but duck one’s head and pray. Every explosion sent a tremor through Monty’s bones. He could hear nothing over the roar of the shells as they went off all round, each sending a shower of wood and dirt over the foxhole. 

As a lad, Monty had always thought of hell as a fiery pit, full of all manner of horrid devils and monsters. As he lay curled in the hole with his hands over his head, though, fiery pit and devils were the furthest thing from his mind. 

From that day until his last, Monty’s hell was a foxhole.

By the end, he and Pinky were both covered in dust from the splintered trees. Miraculously, no-one was dead. Murray’d taken a bit of tree in the arse, but he was in good spirits when Monty made it over to check on him, flashed a thumbs up as Mathers finished binding the wound. 

No sooner than they got him off to an aid station back behind the line, Atterbury was out of his tent and ordering a patrol. Monty’s platoon had the sharpshooter, so Monty’s platoon volunteered. He grabbed Wilton as they geared up. 

“You’ve the best eyes and the best shot in the platoon, Wilton. I want you up front, looking out. Jerry’s had months to get to know these hills.” Wilton nodded. The sun was sinking low as they left the line behind. It dropped fast once they got going, and before long, the ground was more shadow than not. Though far from superstitious, Monty’s rebellious brain kept reminding him that it was nearing Hallowe’en, a fitting time of year for hunting monsters. 

In the end, though, the monsters hunted them. 

Wilton dropped back to Monty’s side sometime around 2100, a worried set to his mouth and his face pale under the weak moonlight. 

“Can’t be sure, Lef’tenant, but I think we’ve company out here.” Monty raised an eyebrow, and Wilton shrugged. “It’s black as sin out, but I hear too many footsteps, every now and then. A-a lot too many, Sir.” Monty held up a fist, and the men stopped, looking to him expectantly.

They came out of the trees, then, sudden and near silent, too many to count.

They weren’t regular old Jerry. These were special troops, done up in masks and black trenches. The masks made Monty’s blood run cold, but he realized a moment later they weren’t gas masks, but body armor.

Monty had sixteen men in his platoon. Not enough. Not nearly, nearly enough.

As an officer, he wasn’t allowed to surrender. As a leader, as the man responsible for all the kids around him, he had no other choice. He tugged his beret off, tasting bitter metal, and knew he’d never forgive himself. 

Neither would the Colonel.

He spoke anyway. 

**

The Germans marched them north. The irony was near enough to make Monty laugh, out of hysterics rather than anything else. The 8th Army’d spent the last six weeks dragging its way north across Italy and here was Monty and Second Platoon, shoved onto a train and sent trundling exactly where the brass wanted to be. 

There was no knowing how long they sat in the train car, only that it was a bloody long time without food, and every time the train jolted, a hot line of pain shot through Monty’s shrapnel injury. It was cold fit to freeze the Devil’s own balls, too. The boxcar they were chained up in was wooden and drafty, and the wind only whipped harder as they moved further north. When they finally stopped and the doors slid open, the early morning sun was enough to burn Monty’s eyes. By the way his men shied back, he wasn’t the only one, either. 

One of the masked Jerries grabbed Monty’s shoulder and none-too-gently hauled him out of the car. Unused to standing on solid ground, Monty’s knees went out from under him and the German soldier poked him in the ribs with the butt of his rifle, hard. 

“Steh jetzt auf, schlappschwanz!” He snapped. “Schnell!” Monty knew the last word, if not any of the others, and he did as told, gathering his legs under him, willing them to take his weight this time. 

He wasn’t the only one to fall. 

Cooper, who’d shaken like a leaf the whole train trip, dropped like a sack of flour and didn’t get up when poked. Monty rather thought the poor lad was in shock. Young as he was, it wouldn’t be surprising. When the Nazi’s hand tightened on his gun, Monty stooped down and hauled the boy up, arm across his shoulders. He stared into the black mask and shook his head. 

“No need to shoot, I’ve got him. Please.” The German cocked his head to the side, then shrugged and jerked his chin sharply to the right. 

“Bewege!” he said. Taking a guess, Monty settled Cooper’s arm a little better and set off in the indicated direction. 

The Germans marched them through a little town, which was when Monty realized they weren’t in Italy anymore. The signs were in something that looked rather like German, except that Monty knew they’d not been on the train long enough to be in Germany. Austria, then.

They marched right down Main Street, too, five or six Hausfraus stopped their shopping to stare as Monty’s bedraggled men stumbled along, occasionally prodded by black leather boots and the butts of Karabiners. Monty, feeling vindictive, caught a blonde’s eye and tipped her what he knew was a twisted imitation of the roguish winks he’d tossed at the birds back home. She cast her eyes immediately at the ground, and a petty little thrill momentarily lifted his spirits. 

Cooper finally got his feet under him as the buildings gave way to picturesque Austrian forest. Monty gave his shoulder a squeeze and nudged him forward in their queue, so that the lad was walking just ahead of him, well within his sight and reach should his feet fail him again.

The forest was alive around them, full of squirrels, birds, and the like. After the unnatural silence in war-torn Italy, the soft noises of life were enough to give Monty a headache. The air here was clean, no rotting, choking death in his throat, only the sharp scent of pine. It was overwhelming.

They marched through the forest for a couple of hours, the trail eventually widening into a set of tire tracks. That was when Monty caught the smoke on the air, and knew they were getting close. 

It was a factory of some kind, smokestacks towered on the horizon, spitting greasy black plumes. It wasn’t unlike Birmingham, really, aside from all the machine guns trained on his men’s heads. Their captors shoved them through the doors, and Monty’s heart sank.

There were hundreds. Americans in their green fatigues, sallow Frenchmen in civvies, and Brits from every army specialization imaginable. He even saw a couple of mismatched Russian uniforms milling about. Every one of them was too skinny, bones sharp enough to split skin from the inside. 

Monty hadn’t wanted to believe the rumours that flew around camp about the Germans. Surely even Hitler’s Reich wasn’t ignoring the rules of engagement so egregiously? But here they were, working prisoners of war to the bloody bone. Further than that, too, if the pile of boots in a corner was any indication. He shivered, and wondered, for the first time, if it might have been better to fight, and die on that mountainside. At least he’d have died doing his country proud, not on his knees for the bloody Germans.

“Who is your commanding officer?” snapped a crisp, accented voice, shaking Monty out of his dark thoughts. He drew himself upright and snapped off a salute, gritting his teeth against the twinge in his bad shoulder. 

“Lieutenant Falsworth, 3rd Parachute Brigade.” He said, meeting the German’s cold blue eyes. 

“I am Colonel Lohmer, the Commander of this facility. You are prisoners of Hydra. You are deep in German-occupied territory, so rest assured, Lieutenant, you will be here for a long time. I advise you and your men to make peace with that.” He turned to a guard and growled something in German.

Should have learned German instead of French, Falsworth. He thought, resigning himself to confusion. 

He and his men were allowed to keep their clothes, blessedly, but they were immediately separated, thrown into separate cages. And Monty did mean cages, great iron things, like large-scale versions of his Great-Aunt Eloise’s birdcages. They were four or five men to a cage, which left not enough room to stretch one’s legs out, let alone lie down. There were two American paratroopers and a French civilian in Monty’s cell, a small fellow with coal-black hair. The Frenchman was Monty’s first ally in the camp, and he refused to speak or listen to anything other than French, though Monty was fairly certain he at least understood English. 

Jacques had been in the factory since July, he knew the guards by their footsteps alone. For that, he was useful. Monty could judge, by Jacques’ reaction to the guard coming, when he needed to signal his men to drop their eyes, turn their backs to avoid a beating. The Germans’ favorite activity seemed to be devising and testing out new ways to torment the prisoners, and it was a rare day that screams didn’t echo off the iron bars around them. 

And then, there was the little Swiss bastard. 

He looked over all the men with a pensive look on his round face. Monty’s fists clenched, unbidden, when that dead gaze fell on his red-berets. After an age, he pointed at Monty’s cage, to one of the Paratroopers. The Jerry guard nearest hauled him out of the cage and marched off upstairs with him, followed by the little Swissman. Monty looked questioningly to Jacques, who shook his head, eyes cast to the ground, and murmured,

“Adieu, mon frère.” Monty raised an eyebrow. 

“Adieu?” Jacques nodded. 

“Mmm. They never come back, when they go with him.” Ice gripped Monty’s insides.

“What-what does he-“

“Do with them?” Jacques shook his head again. “No one knows. Sometimes you can hear screams coming from upstairs. One of the Americans says he burns them, once they’re dead. He works down in the furnace room, so I suppose he’d know.” 

“Jesus.” Breathed Monty. 

Sixteen men walked into the factory in October. 

By November, Monty was the last one. His voice was a ragged whisper, his shrapnel wound was angry and inflamed, and his skin was splattered with red, black, and blue. No threat or prayer would sway the Swissman and his Nazi dogs. One by one, they took Monty’s men, the men he’d given his honor as an officer to protect, and shot them, or beat them, or, by far the worst, dragged them upstairs to join the screams.

By the time the three new Americans took up residence in his and Jacques’ cage, Monty would have given the pips on his shoulders, the shiny medal he’d gotten in Ariano Irpino, his beret itself, just to breathe free air again. 

James Montgomery Falsworth had known at 8 years old what he wanted. He was going to make his father proud.

At nearly 30, he knew nothing at all, beyond what he’d give to see his mother one more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Give me comments, dear readers, I'm a sucker for feedback. This is a bit darker than I'm used to writing, but damn, I did enjoy Monty. I think Dugan's chapter is next, so get ready for more war stories.


	4. OPERATION DERVISH

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azzano, and what came before.

North Africa, September 27, 1943

“Fuck!” 

Bramson jumped and looked up from the sock in his lap. 

“Fucksake, what did you do, Dugan?” Tim growled in frustration, shaking his hand. The tin coffee mug glinted merrily in the firelight, as though it hadn’t just seared an imprint of its edge into his palm.

“Burned my fucking-“But Bramson was already laughing.

“Shit, Corporal, it just ain’t your week, is it?” Tim sighed and made to answer, but Bramson had already hopped up and gone, probably off to get Doc Weber. 

Well. Not like Tim’s week’d get any better for talking about it, anyway.

In addition to the shiny red mark on his hand, Tim had picked up an ungodly allergy to some kinda African plant they’d been marching through yesterday afternoon, and his eyes were still itching and watering something fierce. And then there was that lovely Algerian dame who’d ignored every single one of them, aside from James Fucking Barnes, whose chevrons and strong jaw she’d made goo-goo eyes at all damn evening on Tuesday. For God’s sake, was there no justice out here?

Plus, there was a hole worn in his sock that wasn’t gonna get darned anytime soon, what with his _goddamn hand._

“Alright, Dum Dum, what’d ya do?” asked Weber, melting out of the dark and dropping into a crouch at his side. Tim growled again, the nickname stinging, and shoved his palm in the medic’s general direction. Weber was a jackass, but of their two medics, he was the one most likely to sew you up without shaking like a leaf while he did it. Jesus H. Christ, but Tomlinson was useless.

“Burned his fucking hand.” Said Bramson helpfully, just in time for Barnes himself to wander by. Tim heaved another sigh, internal this time. Add it to the week, why don’t you?

“Jesus Christ, Dugan.” Said Barnes, sounding irritated. “How in fuck did-“ Tim, unwilling to hear the end of that sentence, interrupted,

“Grabbed a cup.” Barnes narrowed his eyes as Weber straightened back up and went for his bag.

“It’s a second-degree burn, lucky for you.” He said, digging through it. “You’ll be real sore and stiff for about a week, and make sure it damn well stays clean, or you’ll get sepsis.” Tim nodded and hissed as the man swabbed his hand over with alcohol and wrapped it loosely in cotton. 

When he’d gone, Tim stood up and shot a glare at Barnes, who was still watching with a scowl on his pretty face. 

“You don’t haveta sit around here, Sergeant, I’m fine.” Tim said. Out of the corner of his eye, Bramson went very still, almost like he’d spotted a Copperhead in the bush he’d lined up to take a piss in. Barnes’s pale eyes flicked to the frozen Private, then back to Tim’s face.

“That coulda been much worse, you know.” He said, voice carefully light. Tim scowled.

“Due respect, Sergeant, but I don’t really wanna hear it right now.” Barnes’s eyes narrowed. Across the fire, Bramson seemed to feel a sudden pressing need to get back to mending his sock and fixed his eyes intently on his own lap.

“I don’t really give a shit what you want.” hissed Barnes, stepping in close. “I don’t look out for you outta the goodness of my heart, believe me. But somebody at Battalion decided it was my job to make sure none of you assholes gets killed by somehtin’ other than a Kraut, and I take that serious as the fuckin’ grave.” Tim opened his mouth, but Barnes wasn’t done yet. 

“While you’re in this platoon, Dugan, you are not allowed to hurt yourself being a fuckin’ idiot.” Barnes stepped back, out of Tim’s personal space and back into Bramson’s hearing, then turned away and shot “Pay attention to what you’re goddamn doing.” Over his shoulder as he set off through the trees, headed for Jonesy and O’Malley on the other side of First Platoon’s camp. 

“Yes, _Sir._ ” Mumbled Tim acidly (uselessly).

Feeling like there really ought to be steam boiling out his ears, Tim marched to the latrines. The muffled cracking and rustling of downed palm fronds and olive leaves under his boots wasn’t near as satisfying as he wanted it to be. 

To say his relationship with Sergeant Barnes hadn’t improved since they’d shipped out would be all kinds of understatement. Good as they’d gotten at avoiding each other back in North Carolina, that kind of thing was impossible on a two-week ride across the ocean, crammed into a troop ship. On one memorable occasion in the hold where they slept, Gabe Jones’d had to actually put himself between them to prevent Tim’s fist from connecting with Barnes’s face over a particularly snide comment as to people who ‘weren’t even from New York’ daring to have opinions about it. Tim had pulled the punch, unwilling to be the sonofabitch who decked their resident Negro, but he remembered, and he couldn’t say it wouldn’t be nice, still, to knock the preening asshole but good. 

He had a solid fifty pounds on the guy, after all, and he’d learned to fight in the goddamn _circus_ , from the knife-thrower, no less. Barnes wouldn’t stand a chance.

Dammit, Tim knew he wasn’t exactly blameless in this, either. He had a tendency to speak without really thinking, and those comments about draftees hadn’t been in the best taste. And sure, there were always people who took the shit he talked personal. It was just that none of them to date had been the same combination of smart and-well- _calculating_ that James Barnes was. Where Tim’s brain didn’t always keep up with his mouth, everything James Barnes said was deliberate, designed to do exactly whatever it was he wanted it to, whether that was soothe a homesick kid from Bensonhurst or light a fire under Tim’s ass. 

And Jesus, fuck, but he could hold a grudge. He was, Tim had realized sometime during their month in North Africa, a pretty terrible person to make an enemy of. 

And yet, here was the worst part: Barnes wasn’t even using his dislike of Tim to fuck Tim over. 

There were an infinite number of ways he _could_ fuck Tim over, after all. Inspections, weapons, field assignments, all that shit was Barnes’s kingdom and castle. Within his discretion, he could do anything from make Tim late to mess to send him into certain death on the battlefield. But as of yet (and they’d been at war for a few weeks now, so it wasn’t a fluke) Barnes hadn’t treated Tim a lick different than anybody else in First Platoon. Hell, he’d never even called Tim ‘Dum Dum,’ not after that first time. Everybody else did, but not Barnes. Fuck, only reason everybody in the platoon knew they got on so bad was because their mutual dislike had started long before Barnes’s promotion.

All of that meant Tim didn’t even get to hate the bastard, ‘cause that wouldn’t be _right_. But he definitely felt whatever hate was, minus a few notches for fairness’s sake. 

A week later, they joined the invasion of Italy. The Navy went first, chugging its way up the Adriatic Sea to cheerfully throw enough ordnance to level the state of Ohio onto the beach near the border with-Slovaka? Slovona? Something like that, anyway. The smoke was still sitting heavy and thick as the 107th‘s boots hit the sand in Monfalcone. Tim could barely see three feet up the beach. 

The compromised visibility was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, Tim couldn’t fucking _see_. On the other, neither could the Nazis trying to pick them off the beach. Though bullets whizzed amongst the men as they disembarked the troop carriers, most of them were sent with a hope and a prayer, not a practiced eye.

The beach at their landing site was pretty wide, according to the maps they’d all pored over ‘til their eyes bled back in Africa. Their objective, of course, was the town itself, and between them and it was something like seventy yards of beach and several hundred krauts with mortars and guns. Tim grinned, hard and savage. _Finally_ , he got to do what he’d signed up to, and fight some Germans. 

He lost his helmet almost immediately, heard a whistle and dove forward on instinct as the mortar whizzed past him. The resulting explosion threw him ass-over-teakettle up the beach, and he rolled upright, groaning, only to realize he was a good twenty feet away from the nearest soldier, a lone silhouette in the smoke for the Germans sharpshooters. He couldn’t hear shit over the ringing in his ears, but a quick glance around found of chunk of rock not too far away with huddled American figures in its shadow.

Tim sprinted and slid across the sand, one hand covering his bare head, the other clenched ‘round the butt of his M-1. His knee slammed hard into O’Malley’s thigh as he pressed his back to the outcropping of rock the other man was huddled against. 

“Jesus _fuck!_ ” yelped O’Malley, barely audible over the ringing in Tim’s ears and the crack of rifles. 

“Shit,” gasped Tim, “you’d think these fuckers woulda gotten shredded by the big guns, right?” O’Malley thumped his helmeted head back against a rock in agreement, and Tim checked himself over for broken bones, trying to catch his breath. 

About the time Tim finished patting himself down, somebody, maybe Manelli, howled “Forward!” Tim dragged one more aching breath before flinging himself back out into the hail of gunfire with O’Malley at his side. The sand whipped at his exposed cheeks as he dodged his way up the beach, firing all the way. 

He killed his first German then, spotted a muzzle flash in the hazy trees and aimed back at it. The shadow dropped like a stone, and a cold kind of satisfaction swelled in his chest, even as he turned, looking for more.

It seemed like hours before the krauts pulled out and the guns finally went quiet, leaving the beach in stunned silence. It had been the 107th’s first hot engagement, and it showed. Tim shouldered through a couple of concrete-footed privates from Dog Company, in no mood to comfort hysterics. His healing burn was throbbing up a goddamn storm, between his rifle and the ever-present sand.

He wasn’t too hard to admit it was a hell of a sight, though. The sand was tinged pink, littered with corpses bobbing gently among the waves. Tim’d seen some shit, coming up in the circus like he had, but war was war, and while he wasn’t gonna be poleaxed over the scenery, he also wasn’t gonna act like he’d done _this_ a thousand times.

“Jesus.” Whispered O’Malley, echoing Tim’s thoughts with a head shake and a low whistle. “Real soldiers, now, ain’t we, Tim?”

He clapped O’Malley on the shoulder.

“Guess so, Pat.” He said, squeezing. “Now, come on, will you, let’s see how everybody else made it.” 

They set up camp a few miles in from the tree line. The Krauts were out there somewhere, and the locals weren’t likely to throw them a parade, neither. All the same, it was Italy. Fortress Europa, the brass called it, although admittedly its ass end. Tim breathed deep despite his bruised ribs, the pine-scented air reminding him of home. Hell, even the faint whiff of smoke hanging around was comfortingly familiar. It also reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since the ship’s mess that morning, so he pilfered a can of beans and one of meat hash and went to find a friendly fire. 

The only man from their platoon who’d got a fire going as of yet was Jones, so Tim waved the cans in front at him, and muttered,

“Mind if I use your fire?” 

Jones shrugged and flashed an easy grin. “Not if you don’t mind sharing the chow.” Tim nodded, only a little awkward, and sat. He liked Jones, he really did. But he palled around with Barnes a lot, so Tim hardly ever had the occasion to really talk to him. For the first time in a long damn time, he couldn’t quite think of anything to say.

Fortunately for Tim, Jonesy himself wasn’t so afflicted.

“You’re pretty good at that, aren’t you?” he asked as Tim seasoned the beans and hash where they sizzled merrily in half a scrubbed-out gasoline can nestled in the flames. 

Tim chuckled. “You work in the circus, you learn how to make your own meals real fast.” They’d had a cook in name only, an old broad named Tabby, but she’d been a drunk and her food could only very generously be called edible, and only on good days at that.

“What was that like, huh?” Tim looked up at him, surprised. Jones ducked his head a little, grinning. “You read all these pulps, you know, about circus people, but somehow I’d guess it’s not all bearded ladies and knife-throwers.” Tim shrugged, stirring the beans. 

“Well, we didn’t have a bearded lady, that’s sure. Did have a knife-thrower, though, and a doll with a third tit.” Jonesy’s eyes went wide, and Tim laughed again. 

“Really? Three?” 

“Yeah. One in the middle, like-“ Tim gestured in the vicinity of his chest. “She’s a sweet lady. Named Nora, she tells the best jokes I ever heard.” He pulled the beans out of the fire and poured a portion out for Jones. They spent the next few minutes munching in companionable silence, until Jones looked up and over Tim’s shoulder.

“Oh, hey, Sarge. You get that leg taken care of?” Tim sighed, quiet as he could. This was exactly what he hadn’t wanted to happen. He twisted around and sure enough, there was Barnes, limping just a touch as he came up to Jones’s fire. Fuck it. Tim wasn’t leaving ‘til he finished his food, and Barnes wasn’t gonna change that any. 

“Yeah,” said the Sergeant, answering Jonesy’s question. “it was just a ricochet, Weber says I’ll make it through. Christ, that guy’s a pill, huh?” Tim fixed his eyes on his plate. He agreed, of course; Weber was a class-A jackass, but he wasn’t about to make nice with Barnes over it, no sir. The Sergeant dropped onto the log next to Jones with a wince, stretching his bad leg out in front of him. Jones dished up the last of the beans and handed them over, to muttered thanks from Barnes. Tim kept eating, as fast as he could. You could cut the awkward with a knife, and, though he was being pretty subtle about it, Jones kept sneaking glances between Tim and Barnes, with the air of a man waiting to see if the mortar that had just hit the ground next to him was going to explode. 

“Shit,” mumbled Barnes, looking impressed, “that’s actually half-edible. Where’d you scare these up, Jonesy, I know _you_ didn’t make ‘em.” Tim wondered, absently, where the fucking justice was as Jones’s jaw went tight. 

“Ah, Corporal Dugan cooked the chow, Sarge. He, uh, learned how in the Circus, seems.” Barnes nodded, his eyes flashing up to meet Tim’s across the fire. 

“Well, now I know you ain’t Irish, anyway.” Before Tim could get offended, Barnes laughed, a real smile lighting his face. “You’re too handy with seasonings.” Tim stared, and, not for the first time, wondered exactly how they’d come to almost-hate one another.

They were probably the two friendliest men in Fox Company, after all, and by rights, they ought to have been friends, too.

**

OCTOBER 12, 1943

O’Malley was dead. 

Hayes, too, and Martins and Johnson and nearly two dozen more, but O’Malley had been in First Platoon, and it was O’Malley’s face Tim would be seeing in his goddamn nightmares tonight. O’Malley’s face, warped almost, but not quite, beyond recognition by the shrapnel under his skin.

But, fuck, at least they’d taken yet another little medieval town in Northern Italy.

Everyone except the brass, apparently, could see how fucked the northern invasion was. It had been too early; the main force of Allied troops was 400 miles away, trying and failing to push through the German line just south of the mountains. Tim and the 107th, though, were still here, uselessly battering themselves against town after fortified town in an effort to draw resources away from the fortifications down south.

And now, O’Malley and dozens more were dead, for an invasion that, as far as Tim could see, was doomed to fail. 

Tim shuffled along the streets of the town they’d taken that morning, Amano or something, Tim couldn’t remember any more. He’d started off with the intent to get some food, but as he looked up, he found that his feet and his dark thoughts had led him to the outskirts of the walled town instead. 

He wasn’t the only one, either. 

Barnes looked like shit, but then Tim thought they all probably did. Tim himself sure _felt_ like shit. Their erstwhile platoon sergeant had bruise-like shadows under his eyes, though, and there was a flask dangling in his loose grip. 

His head snapped around as soon as he heard Tim’s footsteps, despite the flask. His jaw went tight and he jerked his chin in acknowledgment of Tim’s presence. 

He’d found the quiet spot first, so Tim turned, meaning to leave him to it. Before he could walk away, though, Barnes snapped,

“What the fuck are we even doing here, huh?” 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck._ Tim had had that thought not five minutes ago, or something like it, and now it was being echoed by a _fucking_ draftee. 

Tim was thinking like a draftee. 

Tim had always had a mouth that ran faster than his brain. Nora’d said it would get him in trouble one day. So, when he realized he was thinking along the same lines as his Sergeant, who he disliked, in no small part, because he _hadn’t_ volunteered to be here, Tim’s mouth went right ahead and got him in trouble.

“There it is.” he said, and his voice came out horribly light, mock-cheerful. “I knew you hadn’t changed any. All that bullshit about taking care of your squad, ha! I knew you were a fucking coward, Barnes. And I knew you’d get us killed.” 

Less than a second later, Tim realized what he’d said, and he regretted it. But by then, there was already a haymaker flying at his face. 

Barnes’s fist connected hard with Tim’s jaw, snapping his head around. Pain bloomed for a blinding second before Tim caught himself on his back foot and lunged forward, shoving Barnes back against the wall.

Barnes’ knee slammed into Tim’s stomach, forcing him back. Barnes followed up with a combo right out of a boxing ring, two quick body blows, followed by a jab under Tim’s chin. Tim stumbled back a step, but Barnes followed him, throwing another haymaker that Tim couldn’t dodge fast enough, still unsteady from the earlier hits. Barnes, though, was unsteady with liquor, and his punch went wild, glancing off of Tim’s shoulder. 

Tim took advantage of his frustration to tackle him at the waist, sending them both to the ground, Barnes grunted as he hit the ground, and Tim hit him in the face, hard. His head jerked sideways under the force of the blow, and Tim’s momentum pulled his knee up off the ground, freeing Barnes’s leg. 

Barnes rammed his knee into Tim’s side, throwing him off and onto his other side. He rolled to one knee as Barnes half lunged, half fell, throwing one fist at Tim’s nose. It connected, and Tim heard a nasty crunch as he fell back, catching himself on an elbow. Barnes hit him once more, but the strength of the first few blows was gone now, and the punch barely stung. Tim shoved his forearm into Barnes’s windpipe, making him cough, and then-

And then Barnes was gone.

Tim sat up and found Jones, arms wrapped tight around the Sergeant’s chest, standing a couple of feet away. Tim hauled himself to his feet and glared. 

“What the _hell’s_ wrong with you two?” Jones hissed, giving Barnes a shake for emphasis. “We’re in combat! Fighting like this, you two could get court-martialed!” Tim kept glaring, unrepentant.

“He hit me first, I was just defending myself.” He said, knowing he sounded like a kid and not particularly caring. 

“I don’t care who the hell started it!” snapped Jones. “You two are both grown, ain’t you?” He shook his head.

“I’m going to forget this happened, because the platoon needs you two after today. I suggest,” he added firmly, “that you do the same.” He let go of Barnes, only to hook an arm around his neck in a way that might have been friendly, without all the context. 

“Come on.” Looking back over his shoulder at Tim, he said, “Your nose is bleeding, you oughta deal with that,” and walked back toward the town proper, hauling Barnes with him.

It was a pathetic fight, really, reflected Tim later, as he rinsed blood out of his mouth, wincing at the sting of the cut inside his lip. They were both exhausted and grief-sick and Barnes a little drunk, and Jonesy was right.

He’d said something stupid and Barnes had done something equally stupid and if anyone else had caught them, they’d both be in a cage back at Regiment right now, waiting for a court-martial. 

Fuck, maybe they’d just be shot. This was the Front, after all. 

**

They were ordered to hold position in town until they got more orders. It was a mixed blessing. After near a month without, it was damned nice to get a real shower, with water and soap and everything. Plus, staying still for a while meant hot food and real beds, a far cry from the rations and bare ground between Monfalcone and Azzano. 

Tim didn’t mind all of that any, but there also wasn’t much to do. Not enough to forget about the fight, anyhow. As such, He and Barnes had gone right back to avoiding the living daylights out of each other, and Barnes hadn’t actually said a word direct to Tim since the fight itself, nearly a week ago.

No one knew about it; they’d both passed their bruises off as happening during the battle to take Azzano and nobody questioned them. O’Malley and First Platoon’s grief might have had something to do with that. He’d the first guy from the platoon to die out here and they’d all been affected in some way. Not a one of them was the same guy they’d been, back in training. 

Jones seemed to consider it his God-given duty to keep the two of them separated, too. He was subtle, but whenever they ended up in the same group of people outside of duty, he always managed to drag Barnes off on some errand within about five minutes. Still, it wasn’t a great relationship to have in a platoon, and Tim knew it couldn’t last. One of them was going to have to give. 

Before Tim could convince himself to be the bigger man, though, the Germans showed up.

They came on a Wednesday morning, a fucking horde of them, and _weird_ Germans, too. They weren’t the same krauts from the beach at Monfalcone, anyway. No, these fuckers were all in black, some kind of body armor, and the weapons they carried – well, they weren’t Karabiners, that was all Tim knew. 

They attacked in broad daylight, and though the 107th had artillery support along the ridges above Azzano itself, they didn’t have a tank unit with them and they couldn’t keep the Germans out of the town for long. 

The street fight was ugly, and nothing Tim ever wanted to think about again, although that didn’t mean his subconscious wasn’t gearing up to splash it all over the inside of his head for the foreseeable future. 

God knew there was plenty to splash.

“Fuck!” Yelped Bramson. Tim whirled at the shout and stared for a moment, uncomprehending. Then, he saw the blood. 

“Medic! We need a medic, here!” he howled, the words tearing at his throat, but there wasn’t time, and Bramson gasped and choked his last, drowning in his own blood against Tim’s thigh. It was the same on all sides. As he jerked back to his feet, knees bent and head ducked to run for better cover in a doorway, he caught sight of Alonso, Ralston, and Captain Manelli, all dead, their bodies twisted on the ground. Trying to wipe the image from his head, Tim spun away, looking desperately for a familiar face among the living. 

The first one he saw was Jones, his head and M-1 poked just over a crumbling wall as he fired on the krauts. Tim didn’t even hesitate, just sprinted for him. A couple hundred feet away, though, something slammed into his leg, taking it out from under him and sending him to the ground. Pain ripped through his thigh, and he twisted around to find a tear in his left trouser leg and a rapidly growing blossom of crimson along the back of his thigh. 

_Well, shit,_ he thought matter-of-factly. _This is it, then, isn’t it?_ He was a sitting (laying) duck out here, and bullets whizzed by overhead even now, as he shoved his cheek into the cobblestones, his healing nose protesting loudly. The way he’d fallen, he could still see the half-wall he’d been running for, Jones laying down cover fire and gesturing at him to keep coming. Tim knew his leg wouldn’t take his weight, not to run. He shook his head, his cheek scraping along the ground. 

And then, Sergeant Barnes appeared next to Jones. He said something, Tim saw his mouth move, and saw Jones yell back, the words lost in the roar of artillery fire. Barnes shook his head, then, in one smooth movement, vaulted the remains of the wall and started sprinting across the battlefield, headed in Tim’s direction. He stared in utter shock as Barnes threw himself into a baseball slide, coming to a stop right beside him.

“Come on, Dugan, I got you.” He gasped, breathless. Tim blinked, wondering if he was hallucinating. 

“What the fuck are you doing, Sarge?” he asked. “We’ll never-“ 

“Shut up, Corporal.” Snapped Barnes, yanking Tim’s arm over his shoulder and hauling him to his feet. “Help me out here, will you?” he grunted. “You’re a goddamn mountain.” Still not convinced this was really happening, Tim followed orders on instinct, leaning on Barnes and stumbling along as best he could. Bullets whipped through the air around them, though a few less than Tim had imagined there would be. Jones must have been covering them. 

By some miracle, they made it to the wall, Barnes pitching Tim over it with a shove, and tumbling after. Jonesy grinned, even as he continued firing.

“This is a fine mess, huh?” he called, shouting to be heard over the battle.

“Fuck,” gasped Tim, “I thought I was fucked, there.” It was all he could think of to say. Still breathing hard, Barnes clapped him on the shoulder, hard. 

“Turn over, let me see the leg.” Tim did as he was told, hissing as the movement sent a line of hot agony from his thigh up to his neck. 

“It’s not that bad, Dugan.” Said Barnes, immediately followed by the sound of ripping fabric. “You caught a chunk of shrapnel.” Tim grit his teeth as the Sergeant dug the metal out, his nails scraping the cobbles beneath them. One more wave of pain as Barnes jammed a field dressing into the wound, and then Tim was being manhandled up onto his knees, Barnes thrusting an M-1 into his hands. 

“Come on, Dugan,” he growled, “we’re not done here yet.” 

“Manelli’s dead.” Said Tim, detached and not entirely sure why he was talking. “Colonel Strachan too, I saw him back there.” Barnes’s face closed down, his eyes shuttered. 

“We’re not dead, Dugan.” He said firmly. “We’re not dead.” 

_Not yet, anyway._

The world was screaming hell around them, as their regiment shattered against the Nazi troops. Tim Dugan was going to die here, in Italy, behind half a wall with James Fucking Barnes. 

As the German tanks crested the hill nearest them, though, that suddenly didn’t seem like the worst way to go. 

**

Of course, the goddamned krauts didn’t kill them.

As the tanks bore down, some officer howled,

“We surrender!” and the whole kit and caboodle got rounded up and marched – or, in Tim’s case, limped – off to God-knew-where, instead. 

Fuck, if he’d been in charge, he probably would have surrendered too. Tim’s brain had given up on rational thought the second he’d seen that mouthy Lieutenant from I-Company get fucking _vaporized,_ like in a fucking pulp novel.

Barnes and Jones seemed to have reacted the same way, at least neither of them had said a word since that weird blue light had gone off. 

At some point, long after Tim’d gotten used to the stabbing pain up his leg with every other step, they reached a camp of some kind, where a couple of trucks waited for the twenty-odd of them who’d lived through the battle in Azzano. 

His leg actually hurt worse from being sat on than walked on, somehow, so Tim went to humming in a useless attempt to distract himself as they trundled along the shit Italian roads. He mostly couldn’t hear himself over the engine and rattle of wood on metal and figured nobody else could either, but halfway through ‘Bei Mir Bist du Shoen’ he noticed that a second voice had joined him. Barnes shrugged when he looked over at him, crammed hip-to-hip on the truck benches.

“What? It’s a good song.” He said, barely audible over the truck’s engine.

The trucks pulled off the road and to a stop sometime after dark. Tim half-expected the krauts to haul them outside and shoot them or something, but they didn’t. In fact, they did nothing at all, but when one man stuck his head out the back flap, he received a gun butt to the nose for his trouble, so it seemed they were just stopping to refuel. 

As though summoned by the sudden quiet in the truck bed, the question that the Nazi ray gun had chased from Tim’s mind came back with a vengeance.

“Why’d you do that?” he hissed. Barnes raised an eyebrow, so Tim continued in and undertone. “Back there, in the city. It wouldn’t have been wrong of you to leave me there, fuck, I mean you coulda died getting out there to me, leave alone trying to get _back._ ” He shook his head. “I can’t understand why you’d do that for somebody you don’t even like, Barnes, I just can’t.” Barnes sighed. 

“You think pretty low of me.” He said, without malice and equally quietly. Jonesy’s eyes flicked in their direction, but he seemed to be the only one who noticed their talking. “I know you don’t think a draftee oughta have been promoted, and shit, maybe you’re even right. But-“ he paused a moment, looking for the right words, Tim thought, “I meant it, when I said I took it serious. You’re in my platoon, Dugan, and that means I’m not gonna let you get killed if I can help it. You or Jonesy or-“ he broke off with a wince. Tim’s had tightened on his thigh. He, Barnes, and Jones were the only men left alive from First Platoon after today. 

It seemed as good a time as any to bury the hatchet. 

“Look, there’s a lot of shit I said to you I probably shouldn’t’ve, Barnes.” He said. “But I really shouldn’t have said the shit I did last week. You, uh, I mean – I was thinking along the same lines as you, and I was ashamed, I think, at bein’ angry at the war.” Barnes snorted, bitter. 

“Jesus, Dugan, I was the one who hit you.” He said. “I shouldn’t have-“

“Will you just let me apologize, you asshole?” Tim hissed. “All I’m trying to say is, that nickname of yours wasn’t too far off the mark. Can we just – hell, I don’t know, try this again?” Barnes looked at him, eyes wide in surprise. It didn’t take him but a minute to recover though, his trademark crooked grin back in place.

“Headed to hell in the back of a truck, but sure, Dugan, let’s try again." He wriggled one shoulder behind him and stuck a hand out, the movement awkward in the cramped space. "James Buchanan Barnes, pleased to meetcha.” He said, sounding like a radio program New Yorker. Tim grinned, and took the Sergeant's hand.

“Tim Dugan, my friends call me ‘Dum Dum.’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, this is in an attempt to be as historically accurate as possible with minimal research and working with the MCU's completely inaccurate canon. The Allies were nowhere _near_ Azzano in 1943, they were down near where Monty's unit got captured last chapter. 
> 
> I don't know what Tim Dugan's MCU or comics background is, but I also Don't Care, this is my sandbox and I play in it however I want. That said, there are always rough themes in a piece like this, so if there's something you think I handled poorly, please let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> The intended tone is somewhere between M.A.S.H and Band of Brothers, which, incidentally, is where the inspiration for this fic comes from.


End file.
